College faculty members are only slightly less radical than Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a new study commissioned by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has found. The May 28 study cross-references over 100,000 faculty members with over 850 million state and federal campaign contributions. David M. Primo, the author of the study, found that the average ideology score of faculty donors was -1.02. Sanders’s score, in comparison, is -1.14.Of course, faculty members can donate to whomever they like, and their political preferences may not cultivate a conformist campus environment. But that’s nonsense.
Only 20% of university faculty believed a conservative scholar would be a welcome addition to their department, a separate FIRE Faculty Survey found. That’s compared to 71% of respondents who said the same of a liberal scholar.
Other studies show students imitate their teachers. Only about half of students believe that their campus should expose them to all types of speech, even if they may find it offensive, according to a Knight Foundation-Ipsos study. Almost 80% believed the same in 2016. It’s no wonder that three-fifths of college students report that their school climate prevents them from saying what they believe because others might find it offensive.
